Friday, March 09, 2007

From the "Do you want cheese with your whine?" department we have this:

They formed a circle and held hands, praying for the welfare of their school, the nation and the president. Some prayed silently. Others spoke English or Russian.

Administrators at Heritage High School repeatedly asked the students not to pray in the busy commons area and offered them room where they could meet before school. The students refused, triggering a showdown that ended with 11 suspensions last Friday.

First they don't let you pray in the common area. Then the next thing you know they're feeding you to the lions. It's a slippery slope.

Thank Shiva some one's standing up for this poor, persecuted minority of Christians who simply want to rub their religious beliefs in the face of their fellow students without facing this ridiculous harassment from The Man.

The Liberty Counsel, a Florida-based conservative legal advocacy group aligned with The Rev. Jerry Falwell, has thrown its support behind the students, threatening to sue the district over the Principal's suspensions. School officials received numerous complaints Thursday from radio listeners in Wisconsin, and a Christian radio station in Florida plans to air a discussion of the incident and issue, and area churches have phoned in solidarity.

Not everybody gets it:

Miller, the Christian High principal, questioned the point of initially insisting on meeting in the commons instead of a classroom.

"God," he said, "can hear your prayers wherever you are."

Well, sure. In theory. But God gets better reception when you use the non-believers around you as antenna. This is why so many Christian athaletes pray at center field immediately following a game. It's the difference between an analog with interference and a clear digital connection with the Almighty. Shame on the school for forcing these poor Russian students to talk to God on a bad line.

Wednesday, March 07, 2007

Sometimes I worry that I'm being too hard on the other side of the political aisle and I'm failing to consider they're not really that different from you and me. They just have a difference of opinion. We should all just agree to disagree. Then I read something like this and I realize I might as well ponder the reality of leprechauns as consider for a second that self-described conservative are living in the same planet, much less the same reality, as I am.

While the White House publicly withheld comment, some Bush advisers expressed outrage, seeing a double standard and citing the documents-smuggling case of former Clinton national security adviser Samuel R. Berger. "Scooter didn't do anything," said former Cheney counselor Mary Matalin. "And his personal record and service are impeccable. How do you make sense of a system where a security principal admits to stuffing classified docs in his pants and says, 'I'm sorry,' and a guy who is rebutting a demonstrable partisan liar is going through this madness?"

Matalin is of course referring to Ambassador Joe Wilson when she alludes to the "partisan liar." The lie itself? Wilson's initial op-ed rebuffing the administration's pre-war claims that Iraq was seeking to purchase yellow cake from Niger and pointing a finger at the documents supporting this claim as forgeries.

Except for his central argument in his op-ed that Iraq wasn't seeking to purchase yellow cake from Niger and that the documents supporting this claim turned out to be forgeries Wilson was dead wrong. He had the situation described accurately at only about 98% The mendacious cur.

We can't have it both ways. Either Matalin is lying or Wilson is. I don't know about you but I may be willing to write off a whole ton of disagreement to difference of opinion but glaring dishonesty, partisan lying if you will, automatically disqualifies you as someone worth considering a decent human being.

Monday, March 05, 2007

This post by Peter Bray over at Land Use Watch is an excellent first hand account of the inanity that is Measure 37. One of the things Measure 37 doesn't require, but should, is some sort of proof that the landowner had planned on developing their property in such a way that was later prohibited PRIOR to land use/ zoning laws going into effect. What we're left with is a situation where landowners get to pull a Pee Wee Herman claiming "I meant to do that." Long term property owners who had previously no plans of development suddenly saw dollar signs after the passage of Measure 37.I've been hoping the legislature addresses some of the biggest issues in Measure 37 but now I'd just like to see the thing repealed.